100 of the greatest, boneheaded blunders ever made coming up, watch for it!
 

HOS (haulsofshame) has leaked that they are preparing the 100 greatest blunders and mistakes ever made by TPA's. Look for it. It will be blockbuster. It will be the page collectors can go to forever to look at the documented non-expertise by the ones who claim to be worlds experts. It will be THE public record of the malaise, malfeasance and malpractice of all the greatest so called authenticators. I can't wait.

I wonder if the Cooperstown Forger ever got anything past the "greatest so called authenticators?"

the tpa's don't discriminate on the source,

oh wait, yes, they do.

If I sent Peter Nash just a few of Todd Mueller's "blunders," do you think he will post them?

todd mueller is not a third party authenticator. show me where nash posts blunders of individual non third party authenticators?


the list of 100 will astound I am told. Incredible to have so much non - expertise exposed on one article. People will bookmark it for years. Incredible reference tool and it is free.

I have seen plenty of proof of the TPAs' ineptitude, but I have yet to see proof of this discrimination.

really, you didnt see jsa approve several items then issue letters of rejection for those same good items just because they had a morales sticker on them? that isnt looking at the autograph, it is looking at the source. where have you been?

of course they go by the source.

I would do the same thing if I were issuing opinions of authenticity. One needs to consider every aspect of an auto when judging authenticity. To that effect, if someone posted an auto asking for opinions, and I were to say that it looked legit to me, I would change my opinion real fast if it were revealed that the auto in question was currently up for sale in a CC auction. If the TPAs did the same thing, which I vaguely recall, I actually applaud them for such. I know you will disagree.

What I'd be interested in is evidence that TPAs change opinions based solely on who's submitting the autos (meaning they thought it was bad until it was submitted by regular customer X). That would constitute fraud in my eyes, not just the run of the mill incompetence that is on display regularly.

if the TPAs are actually able to authenticate autos, it really shouldn't matter the source.

If anybody were perfect, I would agree. However, given how good forgers can be, along with the premises that I'd rather reject a few good autos than let a few bad ones pass and that certain authenticators and auction houses exist to peddle fakes, I would consider the source very carefully. Some sources would force my decision immediately (just as they currently do from my position as buyer and collector).

that's exactly right, and it makes the whole JSA deal all the more suspicious.

if they are going on provenance or who else stickered it, then they werent looking at the autograph. how is that not fraud? I don;t know.

Travis... Instead of hedging, why don't you tell us if you think that Morales is a good authenticator? Plain and simple, no misdirection...just answer the question.

So it seems you are saying provenance isn't important and shouldn't be considered? I will disagree. It is not solely the auto itself that is important.

Again, I think every auto in my collection is authentic, but if I find that one of them came through CC, I will change my mind very quickly. It will become likely not genuine.

I don't think it's fraud to change opinion based on provenance.

The issue isnt whether or not morales is authenticating poorly, correctly, incorrectly or maliciously, the issue is that jsa do what they say they do on their loa's which is to compare the autographs to the exemplars. when they stop doing that, whether they think they have a good reason to or not, they are doing something else other than autograph authentication. Autograph authentication requires impartiality or else you end up with what happened to jsa.

They didnt change their opinion on the autograph, they changed their authentication based on the source, which is the entire argument made by many people. if you are friends with the authenticator, your items have a better chance of passing, and if you aren't, they don;t. How is that autograph authentication.

The tom sayers autograph at heritage had no exemplars, but got the coa, Why? probably because both authentication companies believed it to be real based on the provenance. that is not autograph authentication, it is something else.

provenance can be faked, and in many instances, faked quite convincingly. you authenticate based on provenance at your own risk.

No where on the coa's of either jsa or psa, does it say that the autograph is deemed authentic based on provenance factors. if they use provenance, they should put it on the coa. plain and simple. but they don't. they say they use exemplars and factor in slant, speed, pen pressure, etc.

You are absolutely right on this last point. If they are using provenance, they should say so in their letters. I haven't read one of their letters in a long time and don't really care much what they say (as they are never specific anyway; marketing works better that way).

And they should use provenance, which includes deeming anything with a Morales cert as being likely not genuine. That is my thought when I see a morales cert, and I won't waste time on the auto itself. My opinion is that it is likely fake, and I guess JSA has that opinion as well (don't forget that it's just an opinion, and you and anyone else can use different methods for forming your own opinions [recommended]).

This is also quite different than being buddies with someone or not, and I have not seen anything pointing to different opinions based on who actually SUBMITTED an item. I would be interested to see some.